


Elio's gift

by Albione



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: F/M, Happy Ending, Hope, Suicide Attempt, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 09:46:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15905823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Albione/pseuds/Albione
Summary: Oliver and Marzia fall to pieces after Elio's death. Elio can only try to fix it.





	Elio's gift

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Erato Muse's work, Elia, or how I saw Oliver and Marzia meeting.  
> Wrote it in one sitting, and it shows!!!

Elio wandered through the abandoned villa; he thought how much he was loved and how much pain he had caused those he loved. He chose to ignore it when alive and now there was little he could do.  
His parents had each other, but Marzia, poor dear Marzia, he could feel her in Crema; he remembered her expression as she held his hand for the last time. There was also someone else he could feel, and he was a broken man. Elio felt the man’s pain and he knew he had to find a way to remedy his mistakes.

\----

When the death of Elio reached Oliver it destroyed him. The gossip did the round of the faculties; Professor Perlman’s son died of AIDS.  
He returned home and grabbed the first bottle there was in the house; knowing Elio was somewhere on the planet gave him hope to live his expected life; Elio, beautiful and talented deserved world adoration, not spiteful judgement.  
As he gulped the whiskey he knew that he could not go on with his life.

His wife got tired of his drinking, as well as the dean of the faculty. He relapsed two days after leaving the clinic.  
At 34 he was without a wife, children, job and home and he did not care. He lost everything when the news of Elio’s death reached him; and he wondered why had he not felt it, felt that Elio was ill, dying.  
Oliver found himself in Crema in July; none recognised the shuffling unkempt man as the dazzling American of ten years before.  
He arrived at the berm and carefully prepared the pills and the vodka, a sip and a pill and soon he would reach Elio. He could see his smiling face, taste his kiss.

\----

Marzia knew she should have avoided coming back; there was nothing here for her. The Perlmans had left the villa, but she still cycled past hoping to catch a glimpse of Elio.  
She missed him so.  
As she approached the villa gates, she heard a piano being played and her heart soared, Elio was back. She ran towards the empty building and the music stopped.  
“Marzia, please go to my place, you know where. Go now!”  
His voice was clear and she was unsure if she heard it or if it just came into her head, but the urgency was real, so she rode as fast as she could to the berm and saw the man lying on the ground, by the water.  
The empty bottle and packet of pills told her that she had to act fast.  
At first she did not recognise him; she was just trying to wake him. As he mumbled something in English she realised he was Oliver, or what was left of him.  
She got him to throw up and sit up. As he slowly focused he wondered who was the curly haired woman looking at him apprehensively, and then he recognised her.  
“Marzia”  
“Oliver, what are you doing?”  
“I miss him so, I cannot continue knowing he is not here any longer” he was crying.  
They talked about how much they missed Elio while Marzia got him back to town.  
The next day they met and talked about the seventeen year old Elio they both loved. Oliver had shaved for the first time in years.  
They cycled to the villa and remembered the best and worst of Elio.  
Oliver found he did not need a drink as urgently as before.

The week was filled with talk of Elio till Marzia had to go back to Paris.  
Oliver followed her; in the train Marzia told him of the times Elio had visited her in Paris, Oliver listened and he fell into a deep sleep for the first time in years.  
In Marzia’s flat Oliver looked at her photo albums and Marzia shows him all the photos she has of Elio, from childhood to adulthood; Oliver caresses the loved face delicately with his fingertip.  
Oliver finds a job in a language school and runs to the art gallery where Marzia works to tell her; they have a meal out to celebrate and he orders a soda.  
At Oliver’s insistence that night Marzia tells Oliver of Elio’s last months and he cries.  
He finds a room under a roof with a shared bathroom at the end of the corridor and Marzia helps him to move in.  
Sitting on the mattress on the floor drinking fruit juice Oliver tells her about the days in Bergamo and the goodbye at the station.  
He phones his ex-wife for the first time in over a year; she promises him he can speak to the boys, they miss him.

At Christmas Marzia stays in Paris with him; they look at the shop windows and wonder what Elio would have liked; he buys her a bright red purse, she buys him a new wallet.  
He also posted gifts and a letter to his sons.  
They sit in Marzia's apartment waiting for the New Year and open a bottle of coke at midnight.  
He kisses her forehead while fireworks brighten the sky.  
When he receives a letter from his sons he runs to show her the photos; he spends the evening talking about them and his marriage, she tells him about her relationship disasters.

For her birthday Oliver buys tickets for a Bach concert at Saint Michel, they both feel the presence of Elio, just tantalising out of reach.  
After, he walks her home and they hold hands. He kisses her in front of her door, she kisses him back.  
They look at each other surprised and then burst into laughter. They kiss again.  
At Easter he flies back to the states to see the boys; when he returns, he moves in with Marzia.  
The first time they have sex it feels so natural that they are overwhelmed. They sleep embracing each other.

Their days are happy, during the holidays his sons visit and they like Marzia; years pass till he proposes and she immediately says yes.  
They marry in Crema during the summer; after the ceremony they both go to the cemetery and Marzia places her bouquet on Elio’s tomb.  
They both miss him. They both know the name of the child she is expecting; there is no need to discuss it, they are going to call it with his name.  
Elio in the villa smiles, he knows there is a new life growing in Marzia, a girl, and is happy that they have each other; he can now rest for a bit, the guilt has lessened.


End file.
